


their footing is a little uncertain today

by cartographicalspine



Series: The Meek [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Haven (Dragon Age), Introspection, POV First Person, Snow, The Veil (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 21:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: Cassandra Pentaghast probably doesn't think that much about Mack Treveylan. No, definitely not.





	their footing is a little uncertain today

Outside of Haven, the mountain air cannot seem to decide whether it wants to be heavy with frost or sear from lack of it, worsening the higher we climb. You think out loud upon it, pointing to the rents in the sky as one of several possible causes. There are others better suited to your thoughts and musings; surely Solas would have been happier company for your enthusiasm over the tears and the Breach. But you _had_ asked me, and for some reason I didn’t think to refuse.

Cautiously, or perhaps recklessly, you pass close to the strange rippling currents of invisible energy as we make the trek to the ruins of the temple. I say and do nothing about it but keep an eye on you just the same; I have pulled enough noble fools out of stray pockets of Fade energy over the past week.

You speak with me, or try to, but you make the same idle prattle that other nobles do, words to fill silence to their comfort. I have no patience for wasted words, and you have a lot of them. Every other phrase is just backtracking and repeating the same line of thought, what I can make of it, and I wonder, _do I make you that nervous?_ I’ve heard your eloquence and seen your grace when I’m away, the comfort that fades when I approach you. I hate that about you, perhaps because I hate that it might be my fault.

Thankfully, you fall quiet not long after, cheeks dark from more than the cold. Thankfully. _Thankfully._

...I should be happy with the silence. There is no reason for the guilt and regret, and I should not be trying to find a way to break it. These reminders do nothing to ease my mind.

Instead, I ask you of your interest.

It’s brusque and abrupt in the way that I know, and of course it startles you. You’ve been nothing but soft edges to my bluntness and you don’t really seem to know what to do around me. I should have tried to be discreet, I should have tried to be more watchful. You’re extraordinarily clumsy when you’re paying attention, let alone when I have caught you off guard with a question.

A slip of a foot, and you fall; I grab your arm desperately but misjudge how far I lunge, and we go down into a shallow trench in the earth. Luck lands us in a snow drift, and the fall was not so far this time. I remember when we last did this. I did not think you or your cousins would rise again.

This time, we land side by side, and you’re out of breath from the fright but unharmed. You shiver in the cold snow beside me but we've hit one of those strange fluctuations: I can feel the sun's warmth so strongly on my back. It's the oddest feeling, and it makes your eyes light up with a wide, curious glow. I tell you that you must have hit your head, I grumble that you should be properly cowed by these experiences by now, and you smile in that gentle, small way of yours so that I almost forget what I really meant to ask or complain about.

_You endanger yourself needlessly._

Your expressions are hard to focus on because they're so soft, but I make myself try to understand anyway. I ask why you have such an interest in the Breach, why you want to draw near to such danger even after the Herald (a child you never fail to treat as such even when everyone else forgets) stabilized it. Why it catches your interest despite your lack of magic. I ask and you say

_it's true; I haven't a drop._

I say

_then why do you study it?_

You say

_are the answers not worth it?_

I pause, and you sit up next to me. Reality shifts, and suddenly I'm shivering from the cold while your face warms in the sun. The light catches softer tones in your dark hair and I jump from detail to detail as you ponder your answer. Finally, you look up at the shimmering patch of air above us and say

_No mana between the two of us. Even so, it touches us, does it not? We are not as separate from the Fade as we like to believe, and we rarely realize it until the catastrophic brings it to the forefront of our minds like this. The very nature of it contains so much energy that something, whatever happened in the temple unnoticed, destroyed so much life while preserving one small, fragile spark of it. Discovering who is responsible and why is a worthy goal, but is it not also worthwhile to discover how this was done and how it will affect us?_

I watch you with whatever is showing up on my face right now. I'm tired, shaken, a little hungry, and tense from the climb and the fall, and I wonder if I look annoyed to you. You laugh nervously and glance sidelong at me, thinking Maker knows what about my interest or lack of it. I don't disagree with your apparent judgment of me; Solas still would have been kinder and better to you in this. I cannot hope to keep up with the thoughts that brought you to this, even if I do admire the question. I see now why you asked me, _are the answers not worth it?_ I cannot help but like it, and I remember now why it is that I chose to come up here with you instead of dumping you into the nearest agent's hands. Seeing you speak so freely, without a trace of nerves or self-doubt, is one of the rarest things I've seen you do in front of me, like a whisper of what you're really capable of. I wish I didn't chase that passion away, whatever your reasons might be. I've never done well with wishes, which is probably why I loathe approaching you or having you approach me, so instead I make a silent promise to myself to stop doing whatever it is I do that makes you fumble the way that you do.

I can't do anything about it now; you collect yourself so neatly in careful form and line, and we set to trudge on through the snow again. I stand, brushing snow and dirt off myself, and then, because it's the only thing I _can_ do, I offer a hand to help you up (even if your gaze makes it hard to face you straight on).

You take it, and I feel like I might smile, even just for a moment, before we let go.


End file.
